Penwood Real Estate Investment Management has obtained a $16.2 million construction loan from Principal Real Estate Investors for the development of a 290,063-square-foot speculative industrial property in Newark, N.J.

Located at 256 Vanderpool St., just north of Newark Liberty International Airport, the property will sit within three miles of the intersection of interstates 78 and 95. The Port of Newark-Elizabeth is also less than five miles to the southeast. Upon completion, the distribution center will feature 40-foot clear heights, 64 loading doors, 79 trailer parking spaces and 8,702 square feet of office space. The firm acquired the 14.9-acre development site early last year from Cookson Pigments for $4.5 million, according to Property Shark data.

Michael Klein and Matthew Pizzolato of HFF acted on behalf of Penwood to secure the loan. CBRE’s Mindy Lisner, Benjamin Shapiro and William Waxman are marketing the property to future tenants.

“Principal has been making loans on industrial properties in this market for a long time and has a firm grasp of the market’s fundamentals and the property’s attributes, and was able to get comfortable making a construction loan on a speculative development,” said Klein, managing director of HFF, in a prepared statement. “Given the property’s accessibility to major highways, the port, airport and deep labor pool from which a future tenant will benefit, the investment was an ideal fit for their portfolio.”